Can you top this? The case of the $100 hamburger

There is something about hamburgers that seems to inevitably lead to excess. And May being National Hamburger Month (wait, you hadn’t heard?), we’re seeing it in spades. The most recent exhibit is this $100 hamburger from an Atlantic City casino.

It’s not only the price of the thing that is so crazy – though it does make the uproar several years ago over Daniel Boulud’s $29 hamburger stuffed with short ribs, foie gras and truffles seem positively quaint.

It’s more the object itself, which looks kind of like one of those car crash photos they used to show in drivers ed classes. “Kids, this is what happens when two careless truckloads of meat collide going 100 miles per hour. And no one was wearing seat belts.”

So what’s in Bally’s Casino’s $100 “Carving Board Burger”? It starts with 40 ounces of kobe beef (of course!), topped with a slab of prime rib, topped with braised short ribs, topped with pickled tomatoes (those actually sound kind of good), and then because you can’t be truly over the top without a healthy dollop of sweet and rich, a "fonduta" of melted Gorgonzola cheese and balsamic syrup. The whole thing is served on something called an "herbed lardo toasted Italian focaccia."

Just try to top that! In fact, if you have a favorite over-the-top burger to recommend, tweet us a photo @latimesfood using the hashtag #crazyburger. But warning: The bar is already set pretty high.